Remember that pilot who's pistol discharged...

[AMF]

Originally Posted by 767Jockey

Actually, It's not that simple at all.
First of all this is a volunteer program. Threaten a guy that if he makes a mistake he'll lose pay or his job, and they'll all resign from the program about as fast as they can get through on the phone to do so. There is no pay No pay involved for the program, lots of free time is donated to it to qualify and stay current.

The problem is that the program is set up so that the pilot has to handle the gun, lock and unlock, don and remove, many times per flight. It's ridiculous. Let the guys wear the gun like every other law enforcement officer can, lose the silly locks, and if more training is required to allow that, pay them to attend so they can get the requisite training. The program is set up so accidents like these are inevitable. This may be the first, it won't be the last.

The program didn't make this idiot discharge his gun. I don't care if the program makes him load it, unload, dry fire it, holster it, put it in a safe, remove it from a safe....whatever.

PEOPLE discharge firearms, not programs. Just like PEOPLE kill other people with firearms. You can pass all the laws you want. You can alter all the policies and do whatever you like, but it's training the PEOPLE that prevents firearm accidents.

If a person isn't qualified, then maybe they shouldn't oughtta volunteer to carry the damned thing. If you can't even negotiate this "program" without discharging the thing, then it makes me question whether or not you're qualified to actually use it. I'd a whole lot rather have a pilot with no gun, than a pilot who THINKS he knows how to handle a gun.

Modern firearms just don't go off by themselves.

Again, make the penalty immediate termination from employment and loss of flight privelages for the person who discharges it and have some sort of penalty for their supervisor and this sorta thing would practically never happen. Guys would know that they better take extra care when handling the gun (and it would probably encourage those who weren't properly trained to take the extra time to get there) and it would also encourage supervisors to check and double check (imagine that concept).